Missionaries of Mercy are called to bear witness to God’s ‘paternal face,’ Pope writes
March 31, 2025
In a brief message, Pope Francis encouraged the 500 participants in the Jubilee of Missionaries of Mercy to “bear witness to the paternal face of God, infinitely great in love, who calls everyone to conversion and renews us always with His forgiveness.”
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“Conversion and forgiveness are the two gentle touches with which the Lord dries every tear from our eyes; they are the hands with which the Church embraces us, sinners; they are the feet on which we walk in our earthly pilgrimage,” the Pope wrote in his message, dated March 19 and released ten days later. “Jesus, Saviour of the world, opens for us the way that we travel together, following Him with the strength of His Spirit of peace.”
Instituted during the extraordinary jubilee of mercy (2015-16), Missionaries of Mercy are priests who have been granted the faculties to absolve sins whose absolution is reserved to the Apostolic See (Canons 1370ff.). The Jubilee of Missionaries of Mercy culminated on March 30 with Mass celebrated in the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle; Archbishop Rino Fisichella, one of the two pro-prefects of the Dicastery for Evangelization, preached the homily.
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